Tom Neel's Blog

Trying another Medium

No matter how you found your way to creativity or as likely, how it found its way to you, you have found your creative voice. You are speaking your language, but have you thought much about being multi lingual? Have you allowed yourself to experiment?

I have no art degree, just a ton of life experiences. But in talking with those who have acquired a degree in art, one thing their four years of time seemed to allow them to do, is to try different things, to find a medium that fit them and to pursue it. Even so, it didn’t always work out, but at least they were trying different things.

I started drawing from a very young age. I started playing the guitar by the time I was nine years old. I was also heavy into scale model building then as well. I started creatively writing in high school. I started photography in the late 70’s, while also being into custom van conversions, custom automotive mural painting, tee shirt design and even building high end scale doll houses for collectors. Painting paintings actually came after all of this and I’ve been selling my paintings for 30 years now.

I am a product of all of these forms of creativity and more. All of it contributes to who I am as an artist today and allows me to be more fluent in creative language. As an example though, I still love playing the guitar, but it didn’t turn out to be the thing I truly applied myself to. But I went on as an adult to professionally build scale models with commissions all over the US and Europe. Every model I built creatively helped me in many ways, yet today I no longer build. Other things such as automotive painting, are as well simply reference tools in my brain that help me a great deal with resourcefulness. Photography has never left me. Millions of photos and no less than 30 cameras later, from film to digital and even videography, have remained a wonderful part of my creative life. In fact, I give credit to photography helping my sprout my painting career.

Painting has given me a massive dream come true, and I honestly believe my success with it as a career has everything to do with all I have mentioned here. The other forms of self expression helped me to more quickly become comfortable with trying new things. When I started selling my paintings or art, I mostly did watercolor work and drawings. Then I did years of acrylic painting and then oil. To me they are all just tools for me to build art.

Writing though, now that’s the interesting one. It’s possibly my diverted career. A long story that I’ll make short. In high school I had a horrible English teacher who seemed to stomp on every creative thought I had. That fortunately was somewhat compensated by my journalism teacher who was the polar opposite and incredible. As life goes on, we all have to do day to day writing, just as we all have to eat. It’s the creative side of things that I was somewhat suppressing. Today it’s rare for a week to go by without me writing 3,000 words that I enthusiastically choose to write. It’s a free flowing form of creativity for me. I sit at a keyboard and it is literally impossible for me to not be able to express something in words.

The greater point I’m trying to make here is, you’ll never know what will come of your creative mind at any time. Always use as much of it as you can. Celebrate your gift, highlight your energy and respond to your responsiveness! If you ever have a real hard road block with your chosen medium, punch away if it feels right, but never ignore exploring that another medium, or form of self expression, may be the unlocked and unguarded door with free entry to the world of your dreams.